Oak View neighborhood celebrates day of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Residents of the Oak View neighborhood in Huntington Beach celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe with a procession down the street carrying a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe.PAUL RODRIGUEZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The day of Our Virgin of Guadalupe, Dec. 12, is a hugely celebrated holiday in Mexico, where many Catholics recognize a story of the Virgin Mary appearing to a man named Juan Diego in a vision in the early 1500s.

According to the story, the virgin asked Diego, an Aztec convert to Christianity, to create a shrine for her. The Virgin Guadalupe is the same as the Virgin Mary, but referred to as Guadalupe in this story from Mexican religious history.

There is some dispute about the authenticity of historical documents regarding this appearance, but nevertheless, the story yields ornate celebrations in which people decorate the fronts of their homes as altars or shrines to the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com

In Gabriela Garcia’s kitchen, her whole family and groups of friends gathered around nearly a dozen pots piled high with tamales, donated boxes of Styrofoam cups and cans of Mexican hominy.

The smell of corn from the tamale husks crept into every corner of the house and the outside alley as people floated in and out through the open door, to get food and return to the celebration happening outside.

Garcia, grandmother and matriarch, has been hosting an ornate celebration at her home for the day of Our Lady of Guadalupe for 13 years. In the Oak View neighborhood, where many people have their roots in Mexico or Mexican culture, the Dec. 12 holiday is a massive event.

Multiple families set up altars in front of their homes, complete with tents, strings of Christmas lights, Mexican flags and cut-outs that read “LA REINA,” (the queen), Virgin Guadalupe. Mariachi bands play their trumpet-heavy music toward the dozens of paintings and pictures of the Virgin of Guadalupe that hang under each altar.

Dozens of adults and children sit in plastic chairs or stand around listening to the music and talking before moving through the neighborhood to visit each altar.

Many people celebrate the holiday – a national symbol in Mexico – in recognition of a story in which the Virgin Mary appeared to a man named Juan Diego in Mexico in the early 1500s.

Throughout the evening of Dec. 11, Oak View residents marched through the streets, following groups of dancers dressed in Aztec garb from house to house before marching solemnly around the neighborhood reciting prayers and the song “La Guadalupana,” all the while hoisting a statue of Guadalupe above the shoulders of the group’s leaders.

“It’s part of our background, it’s part of our religion,” said Leticia Lucas, who has been living in the neighborhood for over 20 years, since her childhood. “Everybody does it every year.”

For Garcia, the reason to host an altar at her home was religious.

“Thirty-five years ago, I had a dream about the Virgin,” said Garcia, a native of Puebla, Mexico. “She told me to honor her.”

Jose Rodriguez, one of Garcia’s grandchildren, said the family starts prepping for the holiday right after Thanksgiving.

The dancers that float throughout the neighborhood, some from professional folkloric dance groups and others composed of children from the neighborhood, can be heard from a distance because of the accompanying drums. They highlight the informality of the event.

“That’s part of the tradition, the dancers are just sort of roamers,” Rodriguez said.

Because the Virgin of Guadalupe story involves the virgin appearing to a man early on the morning of the 12th, many people in the Oak View neighborhood stayed up through the night to offer prayers to her in the early hours of the morning.

Residents of the Oak View neighborhood in Huntington Beach celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe with a procession down the street carrying a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Ricky Navarrete, 9, takes part in a candlelight procession for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe through the streets of the Oak View Neighborhood Wednesday. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Residents carrying the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe visit apartments in the Oak View neighborhood in Huntington Beach to celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe Wednesday. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Residents of the Oak View neighborhood in Huntington Beach honor the Virgin of Guadalupe at one of the stops during the procession celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe Wednesday. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Children join in the candlelight procession through the streets of the Oak View neighborhood in Huntington Beach to celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe Wednesday. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Aztec dancer Lorena Rodriguez helps adjust the costume of a younger dancer before heading down the street in the Oak View neighborhood as they celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe Wednesday. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Residents of the Oak View neighborhood in Huntington Beach honor the Virgin of Guadalupe Wednesday as they celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Hilario Herrera rings the bell announcing the arrival of the procession for the Virgin of Guadalupe. Residents of the Oak View neighborhood celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe Wednesday. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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